Recently, in the first beyond-visual-range air combat in the India-Pakistan conflict, Pakistan Air Force J-10C and JF-17 fighters launched PL-15 air-to-air missiles, achieving a one-sided result of six to zero. This impressive achievement shocked everyone, and Western countries and India turned their attention to the remnants of those PL-15 air-to-air missiles, eager to uncover some secrets or gain certain inspirations.
Recently, Japan's "Asia Times" published an article titled "Interference May Be the Key to Evading China's PL-15 Missiles," revealing some noteworthy information. The article stated that Indian Air Force "Rafale" and Su-30MKI fighters equipped with radar jamming devices have successfully avoided attacks from PL-15 missiles eight times. In other words, due to vulnerabilities in PL-15's anti-jamming capabilities, some missiles failed to hit their targets. Among them, some missiles self-destructed after failing, leaving behind debris on the ground, but one undetonated PL-15 missile almost intact fell into Indian hands.
The article indicated that India is organizing efforts to conduct an in-depth study of this missile and will inform France and Russia of the situation. Clearly, Russia will not disclose any information, but France will certainly share it with the United States and NATO. After all, the U.S. and NATO have already placed their bets on F-35 stealth fighters and other fourth-plus-generation aircraft's beyond-visual-range technology. Therefore, they are more concerned about whether the shortcomings exposed by PL-15 could appear in their beyond-visual-range weapons and are more eager to find effective ways to counter beyond-visual-range threats.
It can be imagined that what the U.S. and NATO need to do now is to take this as a reference, re-examine the electronic warfare systems and radar jamming equipment of their current fighter jets, optimize the systems, improve performance, and increase quantity.
Original source: https://www.toutiao.com/article/1834432355631168/
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